


you're seventeen again (reupload)

by 14crushed



Series: exploring the possibilities [4]
Category: Henry Stickmin Series (Video Games)
Genre: Love Confessions, M/M, POV Second Person, implied trans charles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-19 02:21:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29867673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/14crushed/pseuds/14crushed
Summary: This is not the first time you've felt like this. But this is the first time he's made you feel like this.He takes you back to being seventeen years old again and realizing you like boys for the first time.
Relationships: Charles Calvin/Rupert Price
Series: exploring the possibilities [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2115336
Kudos: 6





	you're seventeen again (reupload)

**Author's Note:**

> reupload because ao3 fucked up and made this show up as part 5 of "exploring the possibilities" when it's actually part 4

You bring him closer to you and kiss him. It feels like you're seventeen years old again and discovering that you like boys for the first time. He kisses back.

Charles isn't new to this. He's kissed you before, he's kissed many people before, and you can tell in most, if not all, of those instances, he has made the first move. That's just how he is—he doesn't think too long to worry about how to approach it. He just  _ does _ it, but he doesn't make a big deal out of it. That's the type of person he is: bold in action and chill in the aftermath.

Even if that's just how he is, it doesn't make your heart flutter any less when you think of the day he first kissed you. He had done it so naturally, like it was the simplest thing in the world. He set your heart on fire and smiled at its warmth.

Charles is not the first boy you've kissed. You're not the first boy Charles has kissed. You remember Dave from the penitentiary before you realized it wouldn't work out, that you just didn't like him but didn't want to leave him heartbroken. You remember Calvin, who still pesters Charles to this day about a relationship he has long since moved on from. But clearly, the younger of the Bukowski twins hasn't. You feel a smile tugging at your lips at the satisfaction that Charles is kissing you more genuinely than he's ever done with Calvin.

There were other people, too, in both of your cases. There was your short fling with Victoria up until she caught feelings for the demolitions expert and said she couldn't handle two relationships at once. There was Charles' very brief partnership with Hayden, who took too many bets but never took what they had seriously. There was Johnny, before you went into the army. And there was Charles' brief interest in Henry until he destroyed the airship and Charles' heart along with it.

Were they all terrible? No, at least most of them. But they didn't make you feel like this. None of them brought you back to when you were seventeen years old, looking at your best friend as he's reshaping his self and picking out a new name to fit that self, and realizing that you like boys.

You pull away from your best friend and immediately regret it. You want to go back in, you want to feel that euphoria of how good it feels to kiss other guys again, but you hold yourself back. Charles is your best friend, and you love him, but that's still all he is: a friend. Even as he kisses you and holds your hand in his, and puts his fingers in your hair, and asks you to stay over at his place for a night or two or maybe even three nights in a row, he's just your friend. He's still your friend because you are terrified to tell him you want him to be more. 

"What are you so nervous for?" he asks, putting one hand on your cheek. You lean into his touch and pray he doesn't pull away like you always do.

"I don't know what I'm doing," you admit. "I don't know what to say. I don't know what I'm supposed to be thinking."

Charles does not pull away. If anything, he brings you closer with his other hand on your other cheek, and you aren't sure if you moving until your foreheads touch is all him or all you.

"You don't have to know what you're doing, or what you're saying, or thinking, or feeling," he tells you. "Because I think I already know."

You think that he does. He's always so perceptive; it's no wonder he ascended in the ranks as a pilot so quickly. You silently thank that skill of his for being why you're here now.

"I love you."

You say it because even if he already knows it, you want him to hear it. You want to hear it, too, so that you yourself know all of these feelings that you've been too afraid to put a word to all this time.

"I love you, too."

And you (not him, you) kiss him (not you, him) again. It feels like being seventeen again and realizing you like boys for the first time and hoping one boy in particular likes you back.

He likes you back. He kisses you back.


End file.
